Teens with Disturbed Sleeping Habits at an Increased Risk for Mental Illness

Most teens stay up too late and then make up for lost whole-week sleeping time by snoozing late into the day on weekends. Teens with coming mental illness display erratic sleeping habits, but no set pattern of behaviors.

Australian researchers at the Brain and Mind Research
Institute in Sydney
say that abnormal teen sleep patterns can be an early onset warning sign of
mental illnesses like depression, psychosis and bipolar disorder, and in some
cases sleeping problems can precede other active symptoms of mental illness by
months or even years.

Dr. Naomi Rogers, who directs the sleep unit at the Brain
and Mind Research Institute, says that while most teens will have altered
sleeping and waking patterns due to normal brain maturation during the
adolescent developmental stage, those with very unusual sleep patterns are
possibly at risk.

The researchers say that as a normal pattern, teens stay up
later into the night and get up for school in the morning, and then make up for
lost sleep time by sleeping in on weekends. They say that for teens with coming
mental illness, there often is no such recognizable pattern of sleeping –
simply sustained erratic sleeping habits, A couple of nights of long sleep, a
couple of nights of short sleep ... it's the instability that we think is
important," Dr Rogers said.

Advising parents, Rogers
suggest that everyone be on the lookout for disturbed sleeping patterns in
teens, especially when combined with other warning signs, such as social
withdrawal and reduced mood. Earlier diagnosis of a mental health problem can
result in milder treatments and a better prognosis.